Pages

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

How Convenient

Last night I came home from work with intentions of going to the gym, getting some laundry and packing done for this weekend, and attending a meeting for the organization I coach for. Instead I took a 2 hour nap. Whoops! On my way home from work I started getting a wicked headache and after eating dinner I curled up on the couch and passed out. I woke up feeling amazing! I rarely get to nap, especially during the week. When I actually have some free time, sometimes napping or taking time to do nothing sorta makes me feel guilty, like I should be working out or cleaning my room, or at least doing something productive. But I definitely feel like I needed that nap last night and I think listening your body is a good thing. The night wasn't a total loss because I did get a load of laundry done and I busted out some push ups and tricep dips.

So I'm trying to eat less meat, definitely less red meat. Between the environmentaleffects, consuming all of the antibiotics and crap they give cattle, and the risk of heart disease (which runs in my family) I just don't think it's worth it. So of course my mom makes it for dinner last night and I find some (perfectly cooked steak) in the fridge (where I scavenge for my lunches). At dinner I may have just tried to load up on the rest of dinner and take little or no meat, except the rest of the meal was a baked potato and cucumber slices, not exactly a complete dinner. Do I refuse to eat what she makes and then spend money that I wouldn't have to otherwise? I love just looking in the fridge and having free lunches. And even though I'm trying to cut back my meat intake, that doesn't change my love for steak. I don't know, maybe that's why so many people in our country are overweight, because it's convenient. It's cheap and easy to eat fast food. It's easy to sit on the couch and not exercise. It's easy to keep doing what you're doing, whether it's good for you or not.

I recently watched a documentary called Food Matters (it's on demand on Netflix - go watch it ASAP). There's a lot of slap in the face information about drug companies, cancer treatments, raw foods, and various other topics (some of which I am slightly skeptical about) but the biggest message was simple and made a lot of sense: you are what you eat. If you don't give your body the vitamins and nutrients it needs, you won't operate at your best. The documentary basically said most people are malnutritioned and have no idea. They aren't giving their body what it needs and then wonder why they are tired, sick, overweight, etc. So my sister and I tried to pass some of the knowledge on to my parents last night in a casual conversation over dinner. They are so stubborn! As soon as they hear any crazy newfound vegetarian talk they immediately close their minds, start pointing out any flaw they can think of, and completely miss the point.

If changing our diets to include significantly more veggies and fruit (and less crap) would most definitely increase our chance of living long healthy lives, shouldn't we all be jumping at this opportunity?﻿

1 comment:

I completely agree with you on this Amber. Luckily, my mom is a health nut and we don't consume too much red meat unless we're *really* craving burgers. I don't think going completely vegetarian is the answer, and I think this article articulates my reasoning better than I could: http://www.alternet.org/food/149601/why_i_stopped_being_a_vegetarian

I might snap if I gave up chicken/fish/eggs...steak on the other hand is meh in my book. Good post :-)